The raceways and the rolling elements of a radial bearing are naturally exposed to wear and fatigue. Knowing the extent of wear and fatigue of a bearing is crucial when designing and maintaining such a bearing.
One approach to determine wear and fatigue of a radial bearing is to perform extensive laboratory tests in order to simulate the contact between the rolling elements and the raceways. These tests typically focus on the material characteristics and how they change over time during operation of the bearing, i.e. during loads acting on the bearing. Such laboratory tests are often times supplemented by computer simulations. A drawback of this approach is namely the large error sources which are related to these assessment methods. Furthermore, laboratory tests and computer simulation may take quite a long time until valid and trustworthy results are obtained.
Another approach to determine wear and fatigue of a radial bearing is full scale fatigue testing. For this purpose, a radial bearing in full scale, i.e. full size, is used and operated. Over time, the state of the raceways and the rolling elements are determined and, thus, statements regarding its wear and resulting maintenance efforts can be given. A drawback of these full scale bearing tests are the considerable costs and the long time span until reliable results are achieved.
Therefore, there exists the desire to provide a concept which is improved compared to the state of the art and which is able to test reliably a radial bearing.